Attic Update: French Doors & Power

My cousin Keith & his wife Megan own an awesome old home in Michigan that they're renovating.  A couple of years ago when I was there, Keith showed us a shed full of all of the old windows from the house.  They weren't able to use all of them at their place, & they couldn't find anyone to take them off their hands, so I kindly volunteered to steal a few from them.  A few months later when they came to MN, they were nice enough to haul a few our way!

A year & a half later, I know just what I'm going to use two of them for...French doors!  They'll need a little TLC before they're functional as doors, but I'm super excited about how they're going to look.  First we have to sand them down, then add some length to the bottom with some sort of inlaid panel.  After that I'll paint them.  I have a few colors in mind, but nothing set in stone yet.  (The blue they are now is even pretty!)  :)

Aren't they awesome?!   Love.

In other news, the power is on!!!  No more extension cords down to the kitchen - woohoo!

Last night dad (nailing), myself (cutting), & Grady (carrying) worked on getting everything ready for drywall.  There was one small wall we had to finish framing in Eli's closet, as well as adding "nailers" to some corners so we have a solid place to screw the drywall into.

It seems like we've been working on the attic for months & not getting anywhere.  That's not true, of course, we ARE making progress...but from here on out I think it will actually start to FEEL like it.  (Drywall going up, floors getting finished, trim, stair rails, etc.) 

This weekend the plan is to frame up the doorway (the LAST bit of framing we have to do!) & install the platform for the bunk.  Here's the rest of the list:

• build French doors
• new window
• foam board on peak
• drywall (tape, mud, prime, paint)
• planks on end walls & bunk
• trim & board & batten walls
• paint & hang lights
• tear out stair door & header & repair
• stain floor & stairs
• put up stair rails & paint
• build doors to under eave storage
• closet systems
• hardware (French doors & storage access)

Getting wired

Our goal this weekend was to get the attic completely wired.  It didn't happen.  Instead, we spent most of the day Saturday hauling gallons upon gallons of water out of our basement.  I had gone down there to grab a paint roller (for another project) & discovered that the whole laundry room was under a few inches of water as well as a spare bedroom.  Awesome.

After cleaning everything out and getting rid of the water, we determined that it was actually coming up from the floor drain in the laundry room.  And coming up pretty quickly.  I called the city sewer department thinking that maybe all of the recent snow/rain/melting had caused some sort of blockage in the sewer.  They came out and took a look and said everything on that end looked fine.  So...we had to call a weekend plumber and he finally unblocked whatever it was "a really long way down there".  At least it was a plumbing issue & not coming in from somewhere else.

It quite literally threw a wrench into our weekend plans, though.  ;)

So exciting adding a hefty plumbing bill to the expenses during tax week.  (Sarcasm.)

Anyway...even though we didn't get to the wiring on Saturday, we did get quite a bit accomplished Sunday afternoon.

First, we dropped a weighted string down alongside the chimney to the utility room in the basement.

Then we nailed up the outlet boxes throughout the attic according to code.  I believe it was at least one on each wall greater that 4 feet wide, and no farther than 11 feet apart.  But don't quote me on that!

Next, we drilled holes in the studs for the wire to run through.

And ran the wire up the floor, & through the holes we drilled to the blue outlet boxes.

We've still got a few hours left of electrical work to do, but we made pretty good progress for one afternoon.  There's one more corner to run the wiring through, then we have to actually wire the outlets themselves in.  I'm hoping to have power (& cable) up there in the next couple of days!  (Dad's excited to watch the Twins while he works - no matter how much their pitching is struggling!)

Sometimes it seems like we're getting nowhere on this project...as we work on all of this "behind the scenes" stuff.  (Framing, insulation, wiring, leveling out, etc.)  I think that once we get this wiring done & move on to drywall that it'll finally start feeling like we're making some progress!  I can't wait to see how things come together!

Oh, and it'll also be nice not to have to run an extension cord through the house to the kitchen to get power either!